SARS Surveillance Project--Internet-enabled multiregion surveillance for rapidly emerging disease

Area of Science:

• Public Health Surveillance
• Epidemiology
• Health Informatics

Background:

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initiated severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) surveillance on March 15, 2003.
• The SARS Surveillance Project (SARS-SP) was created to deploy rapid, multiregional SARS surveillance in emergency departments (EDs) using existing internet technologies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To distribute and update SARS screening forms for ED triage.
• To establish SARS syndrome surveillance via the Regional Emergency Medicine Internet (REMI).
• To expand surveillance across multiple regions and assess the utility of internet tools for agile epidemic surveillance.

Main Methods:

• Developed and distributed an internet-based triage form for patient identification, infection control, and public health reporting.
• Utilized the REMI internet application for EDs to report syndrome frequencies to public health authorities.
• Piloted the system in one metropolitan area before expanding to three additional regions.

Main Results:

• Established active syndromic surveillance across health departments in Milwaukee, Denver, Akron, and Fort Worth.
• Collected data on syndrome frequencies from 27 EDs, covering over 146,000 patient encounters.

Conclusions:

• Emergency department and public health partners reported satisfaction with the surveillance system.
• Confirmed the effectiveness of internet tools for rapidly establishing multiregional syndromic surveillance during a global epidemic.